As the warning buzz sounded, both Lanko and Banasel looked over at the detector panel.
"Well, it's about time." Lanko leaned to his right, setting switches. A screen lit up, showing a faint, red dot. He touched the controls, bringing the dot to center screen, then checked the meters.
"Not too far," he remarked. "A little out of normal range, though. He must have all his screen power on."
Banasel turned back to the workbench, studied the labels on the drawers for a moment, then opened one.
"Guess we'll need a can opener?"
"We might. If he's aboard, we may have to get a little rough." Lanko leaned back.
"Check the power pattern. Sort of like to know what we're running into before we commit ourselves." He glanced again at the indicators, then poked at switches.
"In fact, I think we'd better wait right here, till we get this boy identified."
Banasel was whistling tunelessly as he set up readings on a computer. Finally, he poked the activator bar, and watched as the machine spat out tape. Above the tape chute, a series of graphs indicated the computations, but Banasel ignored them, feeding the tape into another machine.
"I suppose there are some characters who could make a positive identification from the figures and curves. But I'm just a beginner. That's why they furnish integrator directories, I guess."